Frankenhive!

Saga of the quizzical transformation of a thrown-together hive.

Here is Frankenhive! It was the result of adding 3 different colonies together, 2 from "take-outs", i.e. bees removed from walls, etc., and 1 free swarm. It was not clear that any of these had queens when they were acquired from Jerry the Bee Guy. Also, we were short of equipment, so the easiest thing was to just put them all together and see what happens! The different groups of bees were added on top of one another and separated with newspaper to slow down the mingling of bees, which is supposed to prevent fighting. It got to be quite an impressive tower hive.

Two weeks later, it is time to look inside the monster! Always interesting to peep inside a hive. Well, here is what greeted the beekeeper. Starting from the top box, a massive "festoon" of worker bees, making long chains of each other, swinging like trapeze experts. But no new comb, rather unexpected.

Festoon!

This is a swarm which was being combined with Hive 5 a few days earlier -- the workers, even without a queen, had drawn out several combs from the lid of their box. You can see the edge of it underneath the covering of bees.

Here is a picture of a similar and more usual situation

Below the festooning mass of worker bees was the original pile of extracted combs covered in bees, many recently emerged. At the bottom of the pile of old comb was one with some new brood, somewhat unexpectedly. And as the last piece was being lifted up, there was a queen! Unfortunately, she had been fatally wounded in the dissection of the hive. So only her workers would survive hence, fine to combine with whatever was in the lower boxes.

Below the top colony was a box of comb that had originally also received a swarm. But there were no bees in it now and none of the foundation had been drawn. Bees from both the top and bottom boxes had refused it in deference to their old comb. Below this middle box was another layer of newspaper with some corner holes chewed through to the bottom box, as intended, and piles of paper shreds from chewing up of the upper barrier.

Finally, in the bottom box there was another pile of original, natural combs from the first take-out colony. As with the top hive, there was a queen and a small amount of new brood but lots of recently emerged workers. This time the queen was carefully lifted out and temporarily caged to avoid squashing her as the old comb was removed. The worker bees were shaken off and frames placed in the box in place of the old comb. Then the queen was reintroduced to the reconstituted box with her workers. All the brood was moved to the top box, which was then lowered on top of the bottom box with a queen excluder separating the two layers. This will keep the queen from laying eggs in the pile of old comb above while the remainder of the brood emerges from it and will allow eventual recycling of the old comb. The workers will pass down into the queen's box and begin to help rear the brood and, hopefully, under new conditions, draw out the foundation on the new frames. Voila! The monster will transform into a normal hive. It already looks less scary:

Boom & Bust Behind Glass

Observation hive dynamics take a downturn.

Queen cells first observed

It became obvious that the observation hive cast off a swarm when 3 queen cells were seen on one of the upper frames. The population of the hive, recently bolstered with the addition of brood and bees from another hive, was also suddenly lower. On June 7th, two of the queen cells were open. By then, the bees had diminished to only enough to cover a couple of frames. A queen was seen among them. However, she seemed lethargic and did not command a very impressive retinue. Sometimes pre-mating queens behave differently, so this could have been the situation. Weather would have prevented mating anytime in the past few days. But on closer inspection, her right rear leg appeared paralyzed, which is possibly why she was slow. She may have been injured in fighting with her emerged sister. This is not a good sign. Will she survive? Will she lay? In a week or so we should know. She may need to be replaced.
Life behind glass is always more precarious than in a normal hive. Fortunately, we have the means to stabilize the situation and should have a vibrant colony on display by Summer term!

Swarms and more swarms!

The intermittent sunny weather is drawing out the season.

A swarm was seen near the apiary over the last weekend. None of us swarm-catchers were there to get it. Still not sure if it came from one of our hives (hopefully NOT) or was incoming. Jerry the Bee Guy also called that he had captured a swarm and could give it to us but again it was on the weekend and the swarmies were predisposed. WE SHALL KEEP TRYING!!!

Swarm season! Bees everywhere!

Swarms began to appear a month ago but reached a peak last weekend. Although our 6 swarm traps did not collect any, there was intense scout activity at half of them. A loose swarm was collected in Oregon by Professor Evan Sugden while on a field mission and installed in one of our hives on return. Here are some pics of that exciting adventure (as swarm capture always is!)

Walking into a swarm!

Swarm up close (in a rose bush at McMenamin's, Troutdale, OR).
After it settled for the evening, it was put neatly into a box for transport to UW!

Swarm finds a home!
The swarm box is coupled with a hive, allowing the swarm bees to march right into a perfect new home! (This swarm dispersed 200 miles with some help!) Welcome swarm colony No. 1!